Mom and Me: Episode 1

by Maura Pennington

As I'm about to leave the house this morning, Mom looks up from her two half-filled coffee cups and mentions that I need to think more about my future. I try to edge out the kitchen door before she can get to her next thought but she preempts me and tells me that I need to make a list of immediate goals and then another list of what I hope to do in my lifetime. She also advises that I eat my lunch and be nice to people. When I come home, Mom asks to see my lists because she apparently actually wanted me to do it. I pull out a crumpled napkin and show her these stunning life and career goals:

TO DO ASAP:

1. Cure my hiccups.
2. Look up "Huguenots" on Wikipedia.
3. Feign shock that they are not merely overweight space travelers as I have been telling people for years.
4. Try not to reference things like "Huguenots" in conversations unless I'm at least 80% sure I know what they mean,or 60% sure the other people don't know what they mean.
5. Complete the crossword puzzle in pink ink and "throw it out" by delicately placing it on the top of the recycling bin so everyone can see it.
6. Play with my hair.

TO DO EVENTUALLY:

1. Learn how to get rid of hiccups by drinking backwards out of a glass without spilling, choking, dying – or worse – getting it up my nose.
2. Write the pilot for "The Magic School Bus: the Later Years" in which the kids learn the shocking truth that they never explored inside the human body, outer space or the waterworks. In fact they never even left their classroom. The whole thing was just a clever mix of suggestion and an LSD-laced drinking fountain that allowed a frazzled teacher who moonlights as a frizzled dealer to wrangle in her lifetime customers young as well as teach them valuable lessons about the water table. Ralph stands up to his abusive, alcoholic father.
3. Bottle my tears and sell them as eye-drops.

Mom says that's a nice start.